There was moisture in Tanaqua’s eyes as he looked up at Duncan. He had found the legendary warrior, his missing half king.
The five injured men were helped back into the stable, their feet dripping blood behind them. Duncan called for a sleeping pallet, and they used it as a litter to carry the unconscious Jahoska inside. Trent led the remaining men back into the field, leaving Duncan, Tanaqua, and Webb behind with Winters and the crippled men.
“It wasn’t just a fit of spleen,” Webb said as he helped clean the ruin of Burns’s foot, glancing at Winters, who sat in the doorway with his head in his hands. “They intended it all along. Kincaid selected five of the fittest. Hobble the fast horse so it can’t wander far.”
“They knew,” Burns said, wincing as Duncan poured water on the wound. “They knew we were fixing to run.”
“We can’t have the bastard spy with us when we go,” Frazier said. He sat a few feet away, watching the blood drip from his own foot. “He’ll be the end of us. He’ll have the pharaohs waiting with guns and dogs.”
Webb and Duncan exchanged a worried glance. They had discussed the spy among them, more than once. They knew it was not any of the Pennsylvania men, who were all known and trusted by Ross. It was not any of the tribesmen, for the Kraken Club would never trust an Indian. It was one of the Virginians or one of the northern rangers, and it seemed unlikely it would be one of the frail or one of those just crippled by Kincaid, for the Krakens would keep their man healthy, probably giving him food when they pulled him into the smokehouse under pretense of interrogation. That narrowed the list to perhaps half a dozen men.
Duncan saw the angry way Webb studied Winters. “He doesn’t know. They don’t trust him.”
Winters said nothing when Duncan produced his stolen medicines to treat the injured, nor when, after the overseer finally urged the fit men back to work, Webb obliged but Tanaqua and Duncan sat defiantly beside the still-comatose Susquehannock, lying on the platform near his makeshift tent.
They stayed with Jaho into the afternoon, at first just grimly staring at him. Duncan pieced together the tales he had told of his life, trying to calculate his age based on his tales of traveling with the Spanish and long-ago battles. The half king had lived at least eight decades, and his body offered testimony to a life lived hard, and wild, and joyfully. There were scars on every limb, including a deep, wide one on his abdomen that looked to have been made with a saber. He was missing two toes, and on his calf was a hollow in his muscle where flesh had been bitten off. On the inside of his thigh was a row of little tattooed flowers, done by an intimate hand, and above his knee was a tattoo of a man flanked by two children, holding their hands. In a better world, Duncan would have sat with the man for days, and recorded the remarkable journey of his life in a journal to preserve for all time.
Tanaqua was silent at first, despair often on his face as he wiped the old man’s body with water, then after an hour he began speaking in his native tongue. “I am the shadowkeeper, the watcher of the sacred lodge,” the Mohawk intoned in a near whisper. “The father of the father of the father depends on me. The grandmother of all rides on my strong back.” He glanced uneasily at Duncan, and Duncan realized he was hearing a recitation of the secret society, one of the vows and verses of the guardians whose work could not be spoken of. Duncan gave an awkward nod and retreated outside. The men with the pierced feet had been allowed to stay in the yard and lay now under the big oak. Winters sat on one of the logs, staring at the manor, and did not react when Duncan stepped out of the yard and crossed the road.
He was gathering boughs of white cedar at the edge of the swamp when he heard a rustling in the reeds. He began his own low chant, the Gaelic words used by his father to comfort nervous animals on the croft, then slowly turned and lowered himself to the ground as the big dog with the curly russet hair emerged.
Duncan stood still as a statue, letting Chuga sniff him before stroking the broad back. “We are losing him,” he confessed to the dog in a choked voice.
After a few minutes he collected the boughs he had dropped. The dog warily followed, staying at his side as he entered the stable. When Chuga spied Jaho he effortlessly leapt onto the platform, sniffed at his wound, then laid against the old man, licking his shoulder.
Tanaqua nodded his approval and went back to his own ministrations. Duncan arranged the boughs around Jaho then set a short candle in a bowl, stacked cedar twigs around it, and set it near the Susquehannock’s head.
As the fragrant smoke rose, the half king’s eyes opened. He silently studied Tanaqua, Duncan, and the dog. “When I was a boy,” the old man said in a cracked, dry voice, “my mother used to say if you sat by the river long enough everything you need would eventually float by.” He tried to smile but the effort turned into a grimace.
“The half king and the lost god have been reunited with their people,” Tanaqua observed.
Jaho sighed. “I did not know about the killings the theft of the god caused. I am sorry. The path was too dangerous, these demons too greedy.”
Tanaqua’s face clouded. “But that was the British. You had nothing to do with it.”
“Your friend Red Jacob,” Jaho said. “The Scottish girl. The Philadelphia man. The Delaware and her husband. The Iroquois boy in Onondaga. My old friend Atticus, who deserved so much better.”
“You had nothing to do with their deaths,” Tanaqua insisted.
Jaho turned to Duncan, who was checking his weakening pulse. “He did,” Duncan declared to the Mohawk. “Because he planted the idea of stealing Blooddancer with Kincaid and Hobart. It is why we are here.”
Tanaqua shook his head in confusion.
“I was working with Titus in the great house when those British soldiers first settled here,” Jaho explained in a near whisper, “when the prisoners started arriving. Those officers complained about the Iroquois being the impediment to their success, that the Iroquois messengers were too hard to stop. I had not heard men speak of the Iroquois as enemies for many years. I was not able to travel to Onondago to warn them so one night I suggested to them a way to distract the Iroquois, to scare them.”
“Steal a god from Onondaga,” Duncan suggested.
The half king gave a small nod.
“Because,” Duncan continued, “you knew men would come from the north to find it.”
“Because the right men would come.”
Tanaqua and Duncan exchanged a forlorn glance.
“The right men?” Tanaqua asked.
Jaho motioned for another drink before he spoke. “When I was young I heard a sound from the forest like I had never known before, like a bellowing scream. It scared me but it also filled me with excitement. My uncle took me out in the night to a place deep in the woods where it seemed much louder. He told me it was the sound of the last wood buffalo in our river country, an old bull that could no longer find females. I said that was sad, and he said no, listen better. He said it was one of the real things I heard, one of the ways the world gave voice at important times, that the old buffalo was speaking to us, that it was a song of the spirits telling us that essential things could never be defeated. He said the ones who carried the song would change but never the song itself. I said how could he know that and he said because I had heard it.”
It was Tanaqua who broke the silence. “Why would the half king need worry about taxes of the British king?” the Mohawk asked.
“I could never find a way by myself.”
“A way for what?” Frustration built in Tanaqua’s voice.
“To save the freedom men. They have to be saved. They must be saved. A new world is possible, but pathfinders must always lead the way. Freedom is what keeps our souls alive. Not everyone understands that, but the pathfinders do.” The old man shuddered, and clenched his teeth against the pain. His eyes shut and he drifted off. It was several minutes before he stirred.